DATE: March 13, 2008

CONTACT: Terry Leap, (864) 656-7343
tleap@clemson.edu

WRITER: Teresa C. Hopkins, (864) 656-1222
hopkin1@clemson.edu

EXPERT: Terry Leap

Clemson schedules meeting to tackle white-collar crime

CLEMSON – There is more to crime than assaults, break-ins and murders. A growing element of crime has surfaced in the corporate world: white-collar crime.

Clemson University will host a White-Collar Crime Symposium on Wednesday, March 26, beginning at 2:30 p.m. at the Strom Thurmond Institute.

White-collar crime is becoming more prevalent, according to Terry Leap, professor of management at Clemson University and author of “Dishonest Dollars: The Dynamics of White-Collar Crime.”

“White-collar crime really tends to go unnoticed because of a low prosecution rate,” Leap said. “While most people think of street crime as violent crime and white-collar crime as non-violent, this isn’t necessarily so. White-collar crime can involve varying degrees of physical harm, such as that seen in environmental crimes and occupational crimes.”

Leap will discuss future issues affecting white-collar crime during the symposium, which also features D. Quinn Mills of the Harvard Business School and Stanton Samenow, a criminologist, psychologist and author of “Inside the Criminal Mind.”

Mills is author of “Buy, Lie and Sell High: How Investors Lost Out on Enron and the Internet Bubble.” He will speak on accounting and financial fraud.

Samenow, who frequently appears on national radio and television broadcasts to discuss criminal behavior, will address the similarities between what he calls criminals in the suites and criminals in the streets.

This free event is open to the public and is sponsored by the College of Business and Behavioral Science and the Robert J. Rutland Institute for Ethics at Clemson.